The Name of the Rose. Stunning book and very eloquent. Dan Brown could learn a lot from Umberto Eco about incorporating some historical accounts into the fictional world. And it is so much better than the film, by the way.

Greg - who has just finished another Crichton - "The Terminal Man", before he embarks on "Prey" and "State of Fear" in preparation for "Next"......[/quote]I remember thinking Terminal Man was simply ok, Prey was good until it turned into a (highlight) ...............................

I enjoyed Terminal Man - which must hold the disctinction of having the worst movie adaptation of all time.....

Prey was as much of a page-turner as I remember it (Crichton at his best....). Now "State of Fear" - which I have not yet read.....

The Name of the Rose. Stunning book and very eloquent. Dan Brown could learn a lot from Umberto Eco about incorporating some historical accounts into the fictional world. And it is so much better than the film, by the way.

I will probably read more of Eco's books.

Karol

Read Focault's Pendulum, now that's the book that puts Da Vinci Code to shame.

The basic plot is quite the same, but the book is even better than the film. There are more scenes with Hannibal (some parts of which made it into his extended scenes in Red Dragon movie), and the has more emotional content overall. Well worth the read.

Are they any good? Because the film was top-notch! And I mean REALLY top-notch. With real testosterone. Not like the POTC and Bruckheimer crap.

Karol, who really, really needs to see this movie again.

I read the first book and I really liked it. If you're looking for an action book of sorts this isn't it, it's more about life at sea and just following two guys (Aubrey and Maturin) and what happens to them. I just liked the laid back style to the book, they get captured but oh well, they sit on top of a hill and eat dinner while watching the harbor.

I just finished, more than 20 minutes ago, The Ruins by Scott Smith (author of the awesome "A Simple Plan" which was turned into a fantastic film w/ Billy Bob Thornton, and the "Game Over Man! GAME OVER" guy from Aliens".

If you like horror movies and/or novels, you should give this a try. Easily one of the best horror novels I have read in a long time. However, it is not an actual HORROR novel. Sure, it can be gruesome in parts.... but I found myself identifying with all of the characters. Finding myself realizing that I would probably be doing exactally what they were doing in their situation.

Great story!!!!!

I will leave it at that. If you are a horror book or movie fan, you should read this book! The only negative is the fact that Smith hasn't written a novel since the 90's "A Simple Plan" (which turned into an awesome film)! "The Ruins" has been optioned to become a movie, as of now, and I am anticipating that!

Think "The Descent" and you will have the idea of this bleak and FANTASTICALLY AMUSING horror story!!!

I'm re-reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan right now. Just started The Dragon Reborn.I still love the series, despite the slower pace in the last few books.

I'm on Crossroads of Twilight now, and boy, is it slow. It seems like Jordan really lost the knack for pacing after The Fires of Heaven. You read these books, and for 800 pages, nothing happens. Then the last chapter will explode with action that positively came out of nowhere. Yet as much as I complain about the deathly pacing, I still can't stop reading because the characters are so good... Especially Mat B)

I just miss the tightly paced and well plotted earlier books like The Great Hunt.

Making my way through the massive book The Winston Effect, basically a coffee table book encompassing all of Stan Winston's projects among other things.

Also reading The Director's Cut, a nice collection of interviews with up and coming directors (Singer, Gondry, Sommers, Ratner-probably the luckiest guy in the film business) and some old ones (Donner).

Michael Crighton's "Next". I'ld give it ***/*****. Overall it was enjoyable, but highly unbelievable, this coming from someone with a good knowledge of Genetics. Granted it wasn't the gentic aspects of it that were soo far-fetched, but the lawsuits were kind of like Come On, what kind of judicial system would except these cases, are lawyers realy that idiotic?

I finished Focault's Pendulum a while ago. It's great, even better than The Name of the Rose. Even the so-called "Da Vinci Code theory" makes its appearance, and, in context of the whole thing, makes Brown's book even more laughable and all of that 16 years before it was written.

"Modern, serious music has become embroiled in an intellectual discussion that has no place in music. Certainly, the great composer of the past were geniuses and used their intellect, but only to serve their emotions and guide their craft. Not to dictate to them what they should or shouldn't write" - Michael Kamen, 1995

I just finished Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country. It is a compilation of columns that Vonnegut has written over the years - reading them all at once makes you feel you are sitting and chatting with him for a whole evening. It's really political, anti-Bush and all, so I won't be detailed about my impressions on his thoughts.

But here is a particularly representative excerpt:

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDEDFOR THE EXISTENCE OF GODWAS MUSIC

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn’t be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us out.

(...)

It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today – jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on – is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country – an atrocity from which we can never fully recover – the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can’t drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it’s being played. So please remember that.

Foreigners love us for our jazz. And they don’t hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us now for our arrogance.

Please don't consider this a political or personal provocation, or a public one at least. I just took advantage from the fact that parts of the book are available online to show how it basically goes. Doesn't necessarily mean I agree with every word. About the copyright, there are a lot of pages hosting this text, so I hope that's all right.

"We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had."

Anyone else half-read books? You start a book and are really into it but somehow you lose interest and just stop? I have probably a dozen half-books I need to finish. I'm trying to solve the problem by just reading a chapter a day that way my enthusiasm doesn't just flame out. A few half-books I've read...

Anyone else half-read books? You start a book and are really into it but somehow you lose interest and just stop? I have probably a dozen half-books I need to finish. I'm trying to solve the problem by just reading a chapter a day that way my enthusiasm doesn't just flame out. A few half-books I've read...

"Modern, serious music has become embroiled in an intellectual discussion that has no place in music. Certainly, the great composer of the past were geniuses and used their intellect, but only to serve their emotions and guide their craft. Not to dictate to them what they should or shouldn't write" - Michael Kamen, 1995

Many people on these boards seem to be at least partly refined, what with basic knowledge of classical film and film music, so I'm assuming most of you can read.

I thought it'd be cool to have a discussion about various good books and give suggestions for others. I've found that these types of threads are good at expanding your horizons, or learning of a title that is either new or near-forgotten in a genre you love.

I'm not really sure how this will work. Right now I'm just going to talk about HP Lovecraft's short stories. Feel free to respond about what I talk about, or talk about a book you're reading, or your favorite books. Unless this thread gets really swamped, it'll be pretty free form.

Anyways, I just recently decided to go out and get a book of Lovecraft's short stories, having heard about him before. Man, he's amazing! I bought "The BEst of HP Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre" at Barnes and Noble and love 90% of the stories so far. A few of his stories seem to never get off the ground, and try to tell you to be afraid of something that isn't very terrifying. "The Colour From Space", for example. But the rest are fantastic examples of how horror should be written (or seen). Gore isn't scary. Often what you don't see is what's so scary. That eerie feeling that creeps into your bones that makes you uneasy is what true horror is really about.

Anyways, if you haven't read it, I would highly suggest it. Good horror books are so hard to come by (I can think only of Psycho, Amityville Horror, and The Shining), that a collection of fantastic short stories is a great fix for those wanting to find more horror.

It's funny, at first I read "Boob talk".
Now I know what I've obviously come to expect from this site

"You think they wear those tight-fitting clothes just so some other bride can say 'Gee your hips look succulent'? The good-looking ones know we're looking, they love us to be looking, and god bless 'em, they're carrying the rest of their sex!" - Al Bundy

I just finished reading Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli's Batman: Year One. Great read, and set the standard for all origin stories of the character, not to mention greatly influencing Batman Begins. Probably as good as The Dark Knight Returns in its' own way, despite being quite different.

I have to read two "actual" books (as they call it) over the Summer for school, those being The Chocolate War, and The Catcher in the Rye. Not a big fan of reading (these types of books anyway), but if I must.....

Do you like John Williams? His early work was a little too jazzy for my taste, but when Jaws came out in '75 I really think he came into his own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and an air of consummate professionalism that really gives the pieces a big boost. He's been compared to Jerry Goldsmith but I think John has a far more leitmotif-driven style of composing. In '82 John composed this, E.T., his most accomplished album to date. I think his undisputed masterpiece is "The Magic of Halloween", a theme so catchy most people don't listen to what it means. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of childhood and the importance of friendship, it's also a personal statement about the man himself. Hey Paul! - Patrick Bateman on the Maestro